We’ve entered the age of the digital nomad.
And being a digital nomad means you need business-building services and applications to run your company or small business.
I see a ton of articles sharing great tools for freelancers, but today, I’m switching it up!
I’m gonna tell you which business-building services to avoid.
I’m not being a Debbie Downer, I promise. I’m not here to spread negativity.
I am here to share my hands-on experiences so you have more information about which services to invest in.
Don’t spend your hard-earned cash on lackluster tools or support. It costs you oodles more in time, labor, and tears.
Let’s get started.
Honeybook
Don’t be fooled by the cute image and quirky copy in the screenshot I shared above. This is how they got me!
Honeybook is client management software and it makes me want to tear my hair out each time I use it.
Seriously, I get heart palpitations. It makes me cry at times.
Just today, I sent over a contract to a client. Honeybook decided it wanted to change the project name in the contract after I shared it with them. Why, you ask? I have no idea.
Honeybook should be rebranded as Confusingbook, because that’s the emotion I feel when I use it. I’m perpetually confused.
Honeybook loooooooooooooves templates. That’s fine, except the templates have a mind of their own and the initial setup is like trying to make an omelet with no eggs.
The organization is confusing, the setup is confusing, the smart files are confusing, the navigation is confusing, and pretty much everything about Honeybook is confusing.
Let’s talk about the scheduler and contact form.
Honeybook has designed a site in which you cannot send an auto welcome email after someone fills out the contact form. What?
The flows are set and you cannot change them. They only allow “automation” on certain actions, none of which are useful until after you’ve booked a client or secured work.
It’s so annoying.
The scheduler doesn’t allow you to attach a question form or ask more questions than the ones HB sets, so you have to do this whole rigamarole to get people to schedule and fill out your questions in one shot. I honestly can’t believe I figured it out and I’m stunned the designers have never fixed this.
It’s a ridiculous design, knowing most freelancers need some questions pre-answered before a call.
The whole thing feels clunky and maddening.
And the support team? Hahahahahahahhhaaaaa!
If you decide to use the chat option, just know you’ll be waiting forever for a reply. Don’t leave something til the last minute if you need the support team to answer a question because they’ll make you late.
When you let them know you’ve been waiting since the Dark Ages for a response to your question, they calmly thank you for being patient and then make you wait some more.
If you want a client management system you can understand, avoid Honeybook.
You’ll thank me later, believe me!
P.S. I’ve spoken to several freelancers who agree: Honeybook is as confusing as a sea lion living in the desert.
Constant Contact
Okay, I have to share some history so you understand my deep disappointment with Constant Contact.
I had a Constant Contact account waaaaaaaaaay back in 2010 for another small business. It was awesome, easy to use and navigate, and super simple to create campaigns, emails, and contact lists.
Constant Contact was user-friendly and unintimidating.
I was in love with it back in the day.
Now, I want to throw my computer across the room or re-live that scene in Office Space where they beat the shit out of the printer.
Constant Contact is just plain annoying now.
It’s bulky, slow as hell, and rarely works properly.
I have several of their plug-ins on my site to capture emails and guess what? The capture forms stop working without warning or any heads-up from CC, making me look like an incompetent idiot.
The website itself crashes constantly, takes eons to load, and is always having some sort of error, none of which you can figure out.
The navigation is clunky. You have to do four or five clicks to get to the page you want.
If you want to create an email, you better be in it for the long haul, because that’s about how long the template will take to load. And will it save your work? That’s questionable and up to the gods — the CC gods who always seem to be on a long lunch break.
As technology advances it appears Constant Contact keeps getting worse. It feels like a 2004 website trying to make it in a 2023 world.
Avoid Constant Contact and try MailChimp or ConvertKit instead.
Yoast SEO
Let me explain why I’m including Yoast SEO in this list.
On the whole, Yoast SEO works pretty well, until you ask it to highlight their suggestions.
Then it’s crickets. Nada. No highlight can be found. You’re in the dark without a flashlight or a highlight. That sucks.
So, if you want to fix an “issue” they find, you can’t because they won’t show you where the issue is in your copy.
Does this happen all the time? No.
Does it happen enough to make me irritated? Yes.
Do I sometimes scream at my computer? Yes.
Here’s another glitch that happens regularly: when the plug-in tells you you aren’t using enough of your keyword(s), it misses highlighting half the keyword placements, especially in headings. Say what?!
I stare at my screen in utter confusion because of this. The…keyword…is…right…there. Why isn’t it highlighted?!
Will I uninstall Yoast SEO? No, but I know I’m not getting the full benefits.
With so many SEO tools and plug-ins out there, maybe shop around before installing Yoast or have a few installed in case you get that glitch.
It’s okay, but I’m not sure how it got to be #1.
What business-building services have you avoided?
As freelancers, we have loads of tools to choose from. We’re lucky because this wasn’t the case even 10 years ago. A lot has changed.
But having more options means nothing when services are lackluster.
I’m curious. As a freelancer, what business-building services have you avoided so I can avoid them, too?
I’d love to know anything you have to share in the comments.
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